On Friday, CNBC’s “Fast Money” show has continued its coverage of the cryptocurrency market, recapping the past week’s crypto price action, namely the Bitcoin and Stellar run-ups.

“Currency War” Could Push Cryptos Higher

The past seven days have been generally bullish for the cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin seeing an over 15% move to the upside, with many altcoins following closely behind. Despite staying relatively stagnant over the past 2 to 3 days, with Bitcoin holding and altcoins taking a slight hit, some cryptocurrency analysts think that this is a bullish sign.

The character of the market appears to have changed. For most of this year, every rally was met with aggressive selling, that has changed over the last 2 weeks.

Essentially, Kellly believes that if Bitcoin can hold key resistance levels for extended periods of time after a run-up, it is a bullish sign. Kelly also went on to explain that a potential for a “currency war” could be a “tailwind” for Bitcoin moving forward.

For those who are unaware, the U.S. President Donald Trump recently made a series of orders that put trade restrictions on a variety of U.S. trading partners, making some believe a “currency war” is inbound, resulting in a higher level of financial imbalance between nations.

This financial instability and uncertainty could spark a growing need for a financial safe haven for investors in the near future, with Bitcoin filling that need perfectly as “digital gold“.

Brian Kelly Speaks On The Stellar (XLM) Project

As reported by Ethereum World News previously, the past week saw XLM take off, easily outperforming a majority of altcoin projects, rising from 20 cents to 30 cents within a week. This enormous price move was attributed to an influx of positive news regarding the project, namely IBM’s use of a Stellar-based stablecoin and the potential addition of XLM to Coinbase.

As a result of this bullish price action, Stellar’s collective market cap surpassed Litecoin’s, with the former becoming the 6th largest cryptocurrency in the entire industry. Kelly also expressed his thoughts about Stellar’s run-up in the aforementioned message, writing:

Stellar is both a currency and a platform, so it makes sense that it is more valuable than Litecoin. The partnership with IBM is very interesting and could add even more value as they build more products on the Stellar platform.

Another host on the Fast Money panel doubled-down on Kelly’s apparent bullish sentiment regarding XLM, stating that there could be a “capital flight” from XRP to Stellar in the near future, citing the reason of Stellar’s use case as a viable transactional tool.

Bart Smith, Susquehanna International Group’s go-to guy for digital assets, recently took to CNBC to give his thoughts on why Bitcoin remains to be the most reliable cryptocurrency investment.

On yesterday’s CNBC ‘Fast Money‘ segment, Smith noted that Bitcoin has gained the most real-world adoption, as people are “functionally using” it.

He elaborated on that comment, stating:

If you want to own the asset that you can actually use today and that people are functionally using, it’s bitcoin. The use case for bitcoin is valid today, which is the currency of the internet.

He reiterated that Bitcoin still represents a sort of “digital gold,” allowing for it to be used as an uncensorable, cross-border and efficient value transfer tool. Smith double-downed on that statement, later expressing that Bitcoin has become invaluable as a remittance method, declaring:

They use Western Union, traditional banks; It is slow and it is expensive. And there are people that can stop you from sending that money, whether that’s good or bad. With bitcoin, I can send money. It’s fast. It’s cheap. And frankly, no one can stop me.

While comparing Bitcoin to altcoins, such as ones that propagate smart contracts, the Susquehanna trader pointed out that Bitcoin will have a tough time dropping the aforementioned use cases it currently holds.

If these are the two use cases (it has) today. It’s hard to imagine Bitcoin losing those two use cases versus the field

Melissa Lee, Host of the CNBC segment, then queried the Wall Street trader, asking him if it was actually good that volatility for Bitcoin has subsided, finding “a range that it is trading in.”

Smith referencing back to his “digital gold” statement said that Bitcoin has become the reserve currency of this industry, becoming the backbone of a majority of crypto-to-crypto trades.

Bart Smith: The Altcoin Market Is Inflated

In a later comment, the trader brought credence to the idea that the altcoin market is currently overinflated and grew due to widespread speculation from retail investors. He stated:

People got very excited about bitcoin. They got really excited about all these other tokens and use cases. And all of the sudden you saw all of these smaller tokens, as people got excited about them, massively outperform. We got way ahead of ourselves

Speaking more on the blockchain development aspect of altcoins, Smith made it widespread adoption of advancements like smart contracts and the Lightning Network “aren’t coming anytime soon.”

This statement was given to reinforce the idea that Bitcoin is one of the only cryptocurrencies with non-speculative value.

Rising Bitcoin Dominance

Smith’s statements, although controversial in some cryptocurrency circles, may actually hold some value.

Over the past week, Bitcoin has begun eating at the market share held by altcoins, outperforming a majority of the top altcoins by over 8%

Image Courtesy Of CoinMarketCap

With Bitcoin’s relative move upwards, the industry has seen Bitcoin’s market dominance figure move from 42% last week, to 43.3% at the time of writing. Although this move may seem minimal, the cryptocurrency market is worth over $250 billion, valuing Bitcoin’s move at a much higher figure than it may first look.

It is still unclear whether this is a market cycle or that the altcoin market is beginning to deflate. But one thing is for certain, Bitcoin will continue (or at least for the time being) to be a reserve currency in bearish markets.

OnChain Capital Founder Calls For $5350 On CNBC’s Fast Money Segment

Seeing an influx of selling volume, Bitcoin has recently fallen by around $250 within a three-hour time span. Altcoins followed suit, with many dropping relatively lower than Bitcoin.

Ran Neu Ner, the founder of OnChain Capital and popular cryptocurrency personality, went on CNBC’s ‘Fast Money‘ segment to discuss his opinions on the direction Bitcoin’s price will be taking.

Melissa Lee, host of ‘Fast Money’, opened up the segment poking fun at the fact that Bitcoin had fallen below $6000, she joked:

You hear that. Yup, the sound of crickets. The crypto buyers are nowhere to be found.

Ran Neu Ner, host of CNBC Africa’s ‘Crypto Trader’ show, called Bitcoin falling under $6000 just two weeks ago. When questioned about where he thinks Bitcoin is going to go next, he said:

Look, unfortunately, the same model that told us that we were going to $5900 is telling us there is more ‘blood’ to come. It’s calling a 62% of a bear market, and a bear market means we are going to test $5350 as the next point.

On the contrary, Ran noted that there is “about a 16% chance of a bull market.”Which he stated would require strong volume levels at key resistance levels in the $7000 range, more specifically $7400.

Due to the chance of the low likelihood of the latter scenario playing out, Ran has held bearish sentiment, or at least for the short-term. He added:

So right now, my money is on the market continuing to go down and going down to about $5350, which is the next stop. And the time horizon there is about the next two weeks.

However, Ran also commented that he believes that this is a good accumulation zone for longer-term investors, specifically those who “understand the technology.”

He attributed his long-term bullish sentiment to the growing venture capital and startup environment that has become commonplace in the cryptocurrency industry.

The Correlation Between Bitcoin Prices And Mining

The ~$5900 price figure is a number that gets thrown around a lot on CNBC ‘Fast Money.’ Tom Lee, co-founder of the FundStrat market analysis firm, has continually pointed out that it a key support level is the cost of mining Bitcoin, at around $6000.

Thinking back to ‘Fast Money’ segments, the CNBC host pointed out that mining costs for Bitcoin “are reportedly right around these levels ($5900).” The founder of OnChain Capital stated that mining costs are a huge factor in Bitcoin’s price, with a further decline in price signaling a decrease in mining hashrate and mining costs. Ran said:

So what’s going to happen is when the miners find that it is not viable for them to mine, what they are going to do is to switch off their machines. And there are going to be fewer machines in the ecosystem.

According to information from cryptocurrency and blockchain company, Blockchain, miners have already shut off their machines, with hashrates dropping by 30% over the past three days.

The Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment is still one week away. As a result, miners remaining on the network may have better mining profitability, as the hashrate continues to go down.

Hopefully, Bitcoin will find price stability, amidst the declining price action seen since the start of 2018.